


Acts of Defiance

by Cerulean_Phoenix7



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Set during 8x05, Some Bloody/Gory Imagery, Suicidal Ideation, angst but with a hopeful ending, implied J/C but it's brief, war-related imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:27:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24318811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerulean_Phoenix7/pseuds/Cerulean_Phoenix7
Summary: The world looks altogether different when it's on fire.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 8





	Acts of Defiance

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in a single evening because a bolt of inspiration struck me and I could not stop until I had it written down. That, and it also proved to be somewhat cathartic at the time.
> 
> This is set during 8x05, and Jaime's mad scramble through the burning ruins of King's Landing.
> 
> Many thanks to the lovely Luthien for the beta work!

* * *

He hears the roar of the flames before he sees them.

A bright orange plume strikes the stone wall a hundred feet ahead of him, reducing it into smoking embers. He watches Daenerys Targaryen, the sole living member of her house, soar over the city on the back of the last dragon known to exist.

He has to reach the keep, has to reach _her_ before Daenerys does.

Around him, death lays its cloak across the bodies of the smallfolk crushed beneath tumbling bricks and burning beams. Children lie still amongst the ruins. If Jaime is going to die, he’s going to beckon death to give him the cloak first before he lays under it.

He wills his feet to move faster, pushing through the crowds of frightened people to reach the next passage. Stone and brick blend into a cascading river of ruin that he can’t seem to find the end of.

He reaches a square, down the hill from where the Sept of Baelor once stood, now littered with the bleeding petals of corpses that dot the square like fallen flowers.

He looks towards the Red Keep, towering over the houses and flames, and knows he must reach it before the stone at the foot of the Iron Throne looks the same. That is the only place left for him in the world, and he wants to make sure he stands there one last time before he dies.

He’s felt the pull of the city on him for the past fortnight, drawing him back to resolve matters left open like a wound. The closer he drew to King’s Landing, the tighter the world had grown around him, pressed between the weight of his decisions and the firm, flat line of his fate. Now, the world feels so insufferably tight he’d fall on his own sword just to lessen it.

The houses ahead of him explode.

Great green blooms unfurl from the shattered roofs, screaming into the air as an acrid tang fills his nose. The fire opens a window back to more than a dozen years before, when a dragon, not a lion, had sat on the Iron Throne. Perched upon the throne like a scaly, decrepit vulture is Aerys Targaryen, his right hand extended forward. His fingers are wrinkled and pale like rotting tree branches, adorned with a dozen rings whose jewels are the colour of old blood.

His words ring like a knell, low and deep and haunting, and it shakes Jaime’s bones to hear the words so clearly after so many years: “Burn them all!”

The vision shifts, and the Mad King bursts into an emerald inferno that births not another dragon, but a lion, its mane a ring of rippling flame. It fixes Jaime with a piercing look, settling itself on the Throne as if it had rehearsed it a thousand times before.

A wrought-iron chair appears next to the Throne, bathed in the same green flame. The lion looks to the chair, and then to Jaime.

Jaime stands frozen, caught paralyzed between the etchings of the past and the swirling smoke of the future. Every air he breathes in chokes him with the scent of death.

The house next to him bursts like a star, sending Jaime flying into a pile of rubble. The vision disintegrates as pain bolts through his body. He spits the dry, bitter dust from his mouth and climbs out of the rubble, thanking whatever damn god chose not to kill him in that particular moment.

He looks back to the Red Keep, bathed in ribbons of thick, black smoke, now more like a tomb than a home. Jaime hears the beat of his heart in his ears and swallows. 

He turns and rushes back towards the gate he had slipped through earlier. Wildfire wails behind him, casting the remnants of the city in a green glow.

He lets death’s cloak slip from his mind, caught in the wind of reassurance. He will not fall under that mortal shroud this day.

The day is still full of light, and he is not ready to sleep.


End file.
